Bowling Green struggles in costly road loss
Miami’s Osborn scores 33 as Falcons fall out of 1st in MAC East
2/24/2013OXFORD, Ohio — The Bowling Green State University women’s basketball team couldn’t stop Miami’s Courtney Osborn, who scored 33 points in leading the RedHawks to a 76-61 win on Saturday.
Osborn made seven 3-pointers and also had seven assists as Miami knocked the Falcons out of a share of first place in the Mid-American Conference’s East Division. Akron, which beat Kent State Saturday to move to 9-4 in league play, holds a one-game lead over both Miami and BG, who are 8-5 in the MAC.
Jillian Halfhill finished with 23 points for Bowling Green (17-9) but was the only Falcon to score in double figures. She also led the team with seven rebounds.
Osborn was one of three players to reach double digits for Miami (16-10). Erica Almady had 13 points while Kirsten Olowinski posted a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.
Bowling Green jumped out to a 10-5 lead in the game’s first four minutes, but Miami responded with 17 straight points to take the lead for good. Osborn sparked that rally with a pair of 3’s and eight points, while Hannah Robertson added five in that run.
The Falcons managed to cut their deficit to 24-20 with 8:55 to play, but Osborn hit her sixth 3-pointer of the first half with three seconds to play to give the RedHawks a 41-32 halftime advantage.
Osborn had 22 points in the first half to offset 14 points from BG’s Halfhill.
In the second half Bowling Green was never able to score more than four points without Miami having an answer, and the Falcons never came closer than 11.
BG struggled with its shooting, making just 33.3 percent of its field-goal attempts (20-of-60) and just 26.1 percent of its 3-point tries (6-of-23). Miami was 29-of-52 from the field (55.8 percent) and 9-of-19 on 3’s (47.4 percent), with Osborn making 12-of-17 shots and 7-of-9 3’s.
Bowling Green returns home to host Buffalo Thursday at 7 p.m.